Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Second to the last email to post! Yikes!!

Well, we are down to 12 days before Sara comes home!!  She arrives along with 3 other missionaries from her mission Saturday, March 29th at 4pm!  Her homecoming talk is scheduled for Easter, April 20th at 9am. We are getting excited!!

Dearest Family,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom and Bryanna!!!! I agree with Matt saying that he can't believe how fast Bry has been growing up and I would add Dan in there too... so crazy... and mom somehow you really do look younger and younger over time so you will have to share with me your secret :)  ha ha I love you both and am so excited to see you in just two weeks.

I totally agree with Matt... I am not ready to come home either, but I feel like the Lord has been teaching me a lot about eternal progress lately.  He has really helped me realize that I will still have lots and lots of time to learn, so I just need to keep going and endure to the end and I will have countless amounts of things to learn.  
Also, luckily the Lord has continued to pour out the blessings upon us lately.  Last week we worked so hard and we were able to have tons of lessons and tons of new investigators.  The lord really does put us through trials sometimes, but then sometimes he just let us see miracles every where we go.  We went from having about 5 investigators with baptism dates to 11 in the past week.  It was CRAZY... we were inviting to baptism like crazy and even better we have tons of new investigators that we can invite to set dates with next week too.  Things were not perfect, and we are not perfect missionaries, but I have seen so much joy in sharing the gospel.  The biggest thing we are working through with all of our investigators is coming to church on sunday.  It is so important, but so difficult for the taiwanese people.  Our investigators all have work on sundays or if they don't it is the only day they have with their families so it is hard for their families to understand why they are coming to church/ waking up early when it is the only day they can sleep in.  It is definitely an exercise of faith to come to church, but I have seen how it really helps an investigators progress.  If they can come to church all of a sudden they have a whole team of people to help them progress.  

G.... one of my former investigators got baptized a few weeks ago and she is doing great.  She is already working on family history and will be preparing to go to the temple.  X..... is also doing super great and is way sad I will be going home, but we already planned to skype and facebook when I get home.  Thank you mom for adding people btw.  They always tell me once you have added them and are excited to see my fb.  Ha ha thank goodness for fb or I would be alot more worried about being able to keep in contact with all these people.  

I must admit the one thing I haven't been good at the past 2 transfers is writing in my journal, so I need to repent of that... I have my planner and I write my spiritual insights everyday, but I don't write the day to day stuff much because I am always too tired at night.  I know I will probably regret it someday so thanks for reminding me how important it is.  

So I don't have much time to say all the specific miracles, but we did have an awesome lesson with a member's non-member husband.  I think he really might end up getting baptized in a few weeks.  We also found some golden people who really want to learn about Christ.  We also have an investigator from Malaysia and one from Thailand... so cool!  It was so fun to teach them and we had to get special book of mormons for them in their language so they could understand us.  Other than that... we also found a family... they loved us because we are white, but it's ok... sometimes that can lead to interest in jesus christ so we are going to try it!  

I think this week I was just reminded again of how much companionship unity/any unity is important to find success.  We have had some sisters with companionship problems and it really reminded me of all the lessons I had learned from before and how much the lord shaped me during those tougher times.  I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and his perfect example.  It really helped me press through.

I love you all and I am grateful for all you have done

One other fun thing you can put on my friend Jessica Frazier's wall that her brother came to Taiwan with his wife and they took us out to an amazing lunch at Taipei 101 - so in the end I got to go up Taipei 101!  sooo neat and definitely another answer to one of my little prayers... thank them again for me!!!

Well I hope both of your birthdays are wonderful and I do have some stuff to give you when I get back so just wait and I will be very happy to re-celebrate your birthdays ;)  ha ha and I would love to babysit their kids when I get back!  I have missed being able to be around kids so much and would love to speak Chinese with them as well!  ha ha well have a great day and I love you all!!!

Sister Sara Gummow

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